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What Cannabis Industry Jobs Can You Get With Your Skill Set?

November 9 2018 photo/istock/HighGradeRoots

By Roger Malespin

As the cannabis industry continues to thrive, the market of cannabis products diversifies. There are dozens upon dozens of cannabis products available, and the American entrepreneurial spirit ensures that innovation will add more in the coming years. With that comes the vast array of job types in the cannabis industry. When we qualify the jobs in the industry, we must consider things like pay rate, sustainability, and skills required, and we can see that there are surprising ways some people can bring their skill set from a non-cannabis industry over to it and make it work.

One of the most common lower skill positions is a budtender. These people are the face of a local dispensary and quite similar to an all around source of information. They ought to have an outgoing and friendly personality, and have a working knowledge of everything from strains to grow techniques and products. While not everyone has this knowledge, it is fairly easy to acquire, and the most important part is having exceptional customer service skills. There are a large number of workers who possess the basics needed for this job, so if customer service is your thing, this could be the position for you.

Another position that one can migrate previous skills is an edible maker. Essentially, imagination is the limit when designing edibles just like any chef. There are a huge number of different types of edibles - candies, chocolates, teas, and baked good just to name a few - that a person with previous cooking experience can get into. Food handling and production are the main skills needed here, so people with culinary experience ought to consider this if they’re looking to get into the industry.

Store and production managers are also in demand, and could easily be picked up by people with previous management experience. It doesn’t matter if your experience is in a different field because the core skills of a manager are what is needed here. The ability to lead, maintain employee motivation, and the ability to make important decisions with a strong sense of responsibility are much more important to this position than a working knowledge of cannabis cultivation and production. Of course, that knowledge can’t hurt, and it’s probably best to have at least a rudimentary sense of them, but quality managers are absolutely needed to help with the large number of lower level workers the industry has and will continue to see.

Another, but more tricky position is a website manager. Skills needed are digital communications and graphic design, but potential seekers should be aware of the restrictions placed on cannabis advertising. Like all illegal drugs, marijuana advertisements are filtered out by Google, so the most common and wide reaching form is out. There can be success with outdoor advertisements like flyers and billboards, but they are not that numerous. Social media is the best way for cannabis businesses to promote their products, so web managers looking to break into the business should be quite familiar with navigating social media advertising. If one can do that, there is a good chance they can land a gig, perhaps even a permanent one, being the web manager for a cannabis company.

Those are just a few of the many jobs people can get by bringing a previous skill set to the cannabis industry. There are more, a lot more, so if you are interested in breaking in, think about the skill set you have and how it might be molded to fit into something a cannabis company needs. The industry is booming, so now is the time to reevaluate your skills and pitch yourself to one of them - the industry needs you more than you realize.